Saturday, May 23, 2015

It
is without argument that Stephen King is the King of modern fiction. In over 50
novels, he has terrified readers with eerie story lines and authentic wit.
Classics like ‘Salem’s Lot, Misery, and Carrie certify him as the champion of
horror, but recently his book themes have hinted to a new direction of content.
Some people are skeptic to the progression, others enjoy them more than his
older works. Mr. Mercedes

is proof of change in Mr. King’s catalog. But did
it live up to its diﬀerence? In
Mr. Mercedes, the book starts oﬀ with a job fair
in an unknown Ohio city. It is almost four in the morning, and the line of
unemployed-hopefuls had escalated from dozens to hundreds. Out of the mist, a
Mercedes-Benz speed up and runs over the crowd of people, injuring and killing
dozens. The reader later learns the sedan was stolen from the owner, Olivia
Trelawney, who most likely left her keys in the car. After the Mercedes sped oﬀ
into the morning mist, the car was then found abandoned with the killer’s mask—
bleached to terminate DNA traces— in the passenger’s seat.

K.
Bill Hodges is a retired detective in the unknown Ohio city. Since his
retirement, he has barely left his house, watches a fair share of daytime
television, and occasionally ponders on eating his own pistol. It wasn't until
one day he realizes that perhaps he hadn’t reached his last case, when he receives
an anonymousletter from “THE MERCEDES
KILLER.” The letter was from the person who injured and killed the people at
the job fair with the stolen Mercedes two years prior, and was laced with
daunting confessions and unnerving, erotic fantasies. In his letter, Mr.
Mercedes invites Hodges to Under Debbie’s Blue Umbrella, an anonymous European
chat site where he gives the detective hints of his next attack. After
unveiling more and more information about the case, Hodges teams up with his
African-American neighbor, Jerome, and a mentally-challenged women, Holly, to
pursue the Mercedes killer and stop his next attack.

Throughout
the novel, the reader gets perspectives from both Bill Hodges, retired detective,
and Brady Hartsfield, the Mercedes killer (not a spoiler, he is introduced very
early in the story). King blends these two very fluently, creating a cohesive, free-flowing
plot.

When
I sat down to read King’s Mr. Mercedes, I thought I knew what to expect.
Stephen King has been commonly known for having marshmallowy middle portions of
his books— where he rambles on about unnecessary facts and ideas for long periods
of time (see his novel, Needful Things). While he recently has done a better
job at improving this issue, it still occasionally pops up in his books. In Mr.
Mercedes, he did not have this issue in the slightest. To my surprise, it did
not read like a King book, either. The novel, unlike some of his other works,
is written, for the most part, in the present tense. Stephen King did an excellent
job of finding a balance between plot, dialogue and back-story.

And,
without spoiling the fun, the story of retired Det. Bill Hodges shows hint of
continuation— which is great news for Stephen King fans over the world.

Avengers: Age of Ultron is a new superhero action
movie, sequel to the 2012 blockbuster The Avengers and the eleventh
installment in the record-breaking Marvel Cinematic Universe. Directed once again
by Josh Whedon, this film features an all-star ensemble cast starring: Robert
Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson,
Jeremy Renner, James Spader and Samuel L. Jackson. With Marvel’s seemingly
endless string of incredibly entertaining and absurdly profitable installments
in this franchise, my expectations as a fan were higher than ever for what was
unquestionably one of the biggest movie releases of the year. In the end, Age
of Ultron is yet another unbelievably exciting movie from Marvel that was
even better than I expected.

Early on in the film, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and
Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) work together to complete an artificial
intelligence project called Ultron (voiced by James Spader), designed as a
global defense program. However, the plan immediately turns against them as
Ultron believes he has to destroy all of humanity in order to save the world.
Ultron constructs his own physical body and eventually an entire robot army in
order to execute his destructive plan. Now, all of the Avengers must team up to
save the world yet again, alongside some powerful new allies, facing a threat
far greater than anything they have experienced before.

For starters, Age of Ultron is undeniably amongst
the most entertaining films you will see. Now that Marvel has established hours
of backstory and the team has already been assembled, this movie has the luxury
of being completely action packed from start to finish. However, they still
found time in the fairly lengthy runtime to continue to expand on the
characters we have grown to love, particularly Clint Barton/Hawkeye. I thought
he was very underused in the original movie, but they really fixed that
character balance issue this time around. As expected, this movie has stunning
special effects and the action sequences are completely amazing. Furthermore,
the acting was exceptionally good for an action movie like this, filled with
plenty of clever humor. I would also say that Ultron is the most well done
villain in the series to date, largely due to the brilliant voice performance
from James Spader (The Blacklist). Overall, Avengers: Age of Ultron completely
blew me away and I thought it even improved on it’s amazing, epic predecessor.

Sunday, May 3, 2015

Are
you looking for the perfect “date night” movie?The Longest Ride is the movie you want.I have been to my fair share of “chick flicks” and they always end with
everyone crying.This is not anything
like that.The Longest Ride is a love
story within a love story.It is set in
North Carolina where Sophia (Britt Robertson) attends Wake Forest
University.Sophia is an art lover and
is preparing for her internship at an art gallery in New York City when she is
dragged to a rodeo by her sorority sisters.

While
watching the rodeo she focuses in on a young bull rider, Luke (Scott Eastwood),
who is thrown off his bull and loses his hat.When she picks it up he tells her to keep it and the love story begins.

While
out on their first date they stumble upon this elderly man Ira (Alan Alda) who
has been in an accident.After dropping
him at the hospital Sophia stays to make sure he is okay.He has a basket of letters that he wrote to
his late wife all through his life and asks Sophia to read them to him.This is where the love story within the love
story begins.

The
Longest Ride is about love, dedication, courage, devotion, compassion and
pride. Throughout the movie the characters show and remember romance and love
in a deeply personal way.I highly
recommend this movie as the perfect date night movie.

Forstarters,you’llfind your employees
will
respond
to you in
a more positive way ifyousimply getto knowthemalittlebit.Learnabouttheir families, their likes,dislikes,wants and
needs.
Establish
bondsbytalkingwith
them
aboutthingsotherthanworkand
soonyou willhaveimproved
rapport
withthem.